PABLO, MONTANA 59855 ISSN: 0528-8592
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NEWSPAPER OF THE SAUSH, PEND d'OREILLE AND KOOTENAI TRIBES OF THE FLATHEAD INDIAN RESERVATION, WESTERN MONTANA
VOLUME 11 NUMBER 24
THE MONTH OF THE BITTERROOT
MAY1, 1983
Who cares about health care? Not the Reservation public
Attendance at the Tribal Health Board's recent series of community meetings evidently can be summed up with a six-letter dirty word: Apathy.
Average audience size, minus board members and Tribal and IHS staff people, at the series' half-way point was five.
The meetings' main purpose, according to Greg Du-Montier, Tribal Health Department director, was to decide "future directions in Reservation health care".
Covering Arlee's meeting April 25, Char-Koosto long with two or three private citizens, learned tha ever-
Petition shot down in Portland
Tribal Chairman Tom Pablo received official wor 1 April 18 that a petition to amend the Tribal Constitution was "insufficient".
Stan Speaks, director of BIA's Portland Area Office, wrote to explain that except for 180 names "which may have been illegal on the petition ... all of the requirements were followed by the petitioners, with the exception of Part 82.7, Notarization of Petition Signatures.
"It is my decision," he concludes, "that the petitioning action is insufficient, due only to the fact that each of the collectors did not appeal before a notary and sign a statement attesting that the signatures were affixed on the dates shown and by the individuals whose names appear thereoa"
Vic Cordier, spokesperson for the petition effort, responds to the decision in a 'letter to the editor' on page 8.
increasing health care costs sire causing a crisis situation. "One in five hospitals across the nation is facing closure due to high costs," DuMontier said, "and the most vulnerable are rural hospitals." There are three hospitals on the Flathead Reservation.
Another serious concern was the failure of federal health aid dollars, on which Indians are heavily dependent, to keep up with health care costs. Over the past five years, DuMontier pointed out, hospital costs tripled while the Indian Healdi Service's budget has only doubled.
The Tribal Health Department has been actively seeking ways to cope with the cris s since it was learned 18 months ago that the federal government intended to establish a bidding process whereby hospitals compete against each other for health care contracts. Larger hospitals such as exist off the Reservation would have an edge over the three smaller ones here.
Besides explaining these alarming facts, DuMontier and his assistant, Kevin Howlett, presented a number of interesting local statistics, based on figures from the Indian Health Service.
Accidents, poisoning and violence account for the majority of doctor visits, hospital stays and deaths, for example, especially in the 15 to 44 years of age group, they said. The greatest number of accidents involved automobiles. Local statistics in this category are five times higher than national ones.
Between the ages of 45 to 64, the disease alcoholism claims most of its victims, prompting DuMontier to remark,
(Continued on page 2)